Overcoming Hate in America | Opinion

Hate toward others—be it motivated by politics, race, gender, or sexual orientation—is plaguing and dividing America. President Joe Biden held a summit recently at the White House to unite Americans into action against hate-based violence and white supremacy, and seek solutions.

Hate crimes, and violence in general, are on the rise, mostly targeting minorities and women. There's been an unprecedented surge in firearm purchasing, and over 450 mass shootings in 2022 so far. Homicides increased by 27.5 percent in 2020, the greatest increase in the year-over-year rate in the last century; and sadly, the number of suicides almost doubled that of homicides.

Fortunately, there is a way out. I've been helping white supremacists and other extremists move away from violence for over a decade. In my experience, the solution starts with releasing our own hate toward people we know, including ourselves or our family members, who have hurt us.

If anyone understands hate and how to overcome it, it's me.

Abuse doesn't capture what my siblings and I went through as children. It was a lot more like torture. I was 3 years old when my uncle raped me and my sister. When we told my mother, she continued to make us spend time with him and show him affection. My mother beat me with pipes and sticks, starved me, deprived me of sleep, and forced me to go to the bathroom on myself. No matter who I told, no one helped. At 8 years old, I tried to kill myself. At 11, I ran away.

Without realizing it, my hatred for the system, for a world that didn't care about me, had taken root, and I expressed that anger through violence. I hurt a lot of innocent people, physically and emotionally.

I would go on to spend 15 years in and out of prison, where race riots were inevitable. You were either with the white inmates or you were with the Black inmates, and me being Mexican-Mescalero Apache, I aligned with the Black inmates. I looked up to the older Black and Latino men who took me under their wings. My experiences of institutionalized racism there radicalized my hatred for cops, white people, and the system. There were no more innocent people in the world as far as I was concerned. I felt justified in my violence.

Many years later I was in a treatment center and a counselor asked me about my mother. He was the first person who genuinely wanted to listen to my story, without judgment. As I began to respond, emotions buried deep inside of me poured out in a blur of messy tears. Then, one of his questions changed the course of my life. He asked, "Have you ever hurt anyone the way your mother hurt you?" I realized the answer was yes. As soon as I felt this shift, there was no looking back. I was able to see that my mother's behavior was based on her own self-hatred, as was mine.

I also realized that most of the violence we see around us starts with someone who is likely feeling hate for themselves or someone they know. This often manifests as violence toward others—even entire groups of people. The stories are consistent across the hundreds of white supremacists and other extremists I have worked with that are trying to reform their lives.

We hold the power to change our stories and what they represent. The hate I felt for my mother isn't the only kind of interpersonal hate. I was humbled to join eight other people who shared their own paths to overcoming hate in the upcoming documentary I Hate You But It's Killing Me. Cherrial Odell is a two-time teen suicide survivor who felt no self-worth after living with parents who were struggling with their own childhood trauma and alcohol addictions. She is now an undergraduate at Stanford University. Donnie Williams, an African American who was berated as a child by his white stepfather, vowed at a young age to never let white people rule over him again. He has since become a world karate champion and a bishop. Adrian Dalgetty Bone is still working on letting go of the extreme anger and hatred toward the person who she believes murdered her brother. It's a process, and not an easy one. But it is possible.

When average people are willing to share their stories, it invites others to consider creating a new story and path for themselves. We can't escape our experiences, but the things that hold us down can one day hold us up.

As I witness the rising tide of violence in this country and the politicians grasping for solutions, my hope is that each individual who feels so much hate for an entire group of people will have an opportunity to share their struggles and be heard without judgment. Perhaps they may realize that by letting go of the tight grip they are holding around their own interpersonal hate, they can transform.

Sammy Rangel is co-founder of Life After Hate and founder of Formers Anonymous. His story will be featured in the upcoming documentary I Hate You But It's Killing Me, premiering on Dec. 9.

The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.